Leading retailers, clothing manufacturers, environmental
groups and academics announced plans this week to form a new coalition aimed at
lessening the environmental and social impact associated with producing apparel
and footwear around the world. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) intends
to develop improved sustainability strategies and an index to measure and
evaluate "green" performance in the apparel industry. Evaluating and
scoring businesses on things like worker conditions and water and chemical
usage, the Apparel Index 1.0 will enable companies to measure their environmental
and social impact, compare themselves to other companies and receive
improvement strategies.

To further the green mission, coalition members will devise
plans to reduce chemical usage, lessen the apparel industry's water and
industrial consumption and improve waste diversion. Concerned about the
potential hazards industry employees face, the coalition intends to make the
process of producing apparel transparent and get workplaces throughout the
apparel world to adopt standards that lead to fair treatment of employees and
safe working environments where none are exposed to toxic chemicals. "Over
the past few years, the U.S.
apparel and footwear industry has embraced sustainability as a key component to
the way we do business," says Kevin M. Burke, president and CEO
of the American Apparel & Footwear Association. "The industry
understands that collaboration and transparency are the best ways to reduce our
industry's impact on the environment."

The SAC's 30 or so founding
members include companies like Walmart, Target, J.C.
Penney, Timberland and Nike. Other initial members of the coalition are DukeUniversity, the nonprofit
Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Protection Agency and Verité, a labor rights group. The SAC could expand to 40
members by June. "Should the Sustainable Apparel Coalition succeed, its
focus on improving supply chain performance could become a model for other
industries," says Leon Kaye, editor of GreenGoPost.com, a website that
focuses on the business side of sustainability. "More efficient,
energy-saving and transparent supply chains not only reduce costs, but lessen
the human costs that put too high of a price tag on what are often cheap
clothes."